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In our emails, sent once or twice a week, you'll receive:
• alerts on new threats to Colorado's environment
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A Million Solar Roofs

While more of us are trying to go solar, dirty energy companies keep putting up new roadblocks. We’re urging our leaders to go big on solar and leave dirty energy behind.

It’s time for Colorado to go big on solar power

More of us are going solar, meeting our energy needs in a way that’s clean, local and independent. Consider:

Solar power has tripled in the U.S. in the last two years, with another American family or business going solar every four minutes.

That’s in part because the price of solar has dropped more than 50 percent since 2011.

The chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said that “solar is growing so fast it is going to overtake everything...It could double every two years.”

Who's attacking solar?

Unfortunately, solar power’s rapid growth has alarmed some dirty energy companies. They keep putting up new roadblocks to solar -- so they can keep solar generating less than 3% of our power, even if it means more pollution and more global warming.

Here are just a few examples:

Charles and David Koch, owners of the oil conglomerate Koch Industries, and their allies have spent heavily to impose new taxes on homeowners who go solar – in effect, penalizing those who reduce their pollution and their carbon footprint.

The Edison Electric Institute, which represents electric utility companies, has teamed up with the American Legislative Exchange Council to dismantle state pro-solar laws in Kansas, North Carolina and Washington State, amid others.

Our report found all or nearly all of the states shared a set of smart policies in common, from strong clean energy standards to policies that let solar homeowners sell their extra power back to the utilities.

30 percent solar by 2030

That’s why we’re urging Gov. John Hickenlooper to make commitments that will help put Colorado on a path to a million solar roofs, with 30% solar by 2030.

Achieving this goal in Colorado would help move our country closer to the national goal of getting 10 percent solar by 2030. This would produce immediate and long-lasting benefits for our environment, including removing 280 million metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere by 2030—the equivalent of taking 59 million cars off the road.

Let's go big on solar

We think a combination of professional research and advocacy with community action can help America go big on solar. Why? Our national federation has done it before.

Environment California spearheaded the campaign for that state’s Million Solar Roofs Initiative. In Massachusetts, we helped convince the state to set a goal of enough solar to power 50,000 homes – and then persuaded the state to raise the goal when it hit the original milestone ahead of schedule. We’ve also won pro-solar policies in Colorado, New Mexico, Minnesota, Arizona, New Jersey and North Carolina.

But we have a long way to go to reach solar power’s true potential.

It’s time to go big on solar. If we take the right steps today, we can harness more power from the sun so we can finally leave dirty energy behind. The sky really is the limit.

Issue updates

Executive Summary

Colorado could meet its energy needs by capturing just a sliver of the virtually limitless and pollution-free energy that strikes the state every day in the form of sunlight. With solar installation costs falling, the efficiency of solar cells rising, and the threats of air pollution and global warming ever-looming, solar power is becoming a more attractive and widespread source of energy every day.

Our new report shows that tapping just a fraction of our state’s solar potential will yield tremendous benefits for our lives, our environment and our children’s future. The report also demonstrates that the rapid growth of solar makes goals what once seemed ambitious readily achievable.

Today the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) approved a motion from the Colorado Energy Office that will keep one of the state’s most successful solar programs in place for the near term and provide an opportunity for a diverse stakeholder discussion about the future of rooftop solar in Colorado. This decision follows strong public opposition to a plan from Xcel Energy to roll back the popular solar program, called net metering.